Families and The Three Bears

Today we read the story of The Three Bears and learned about their familiy and we're learning about different sizes of items such as bowls, chairs and beds. The children sat very quietly as I read the story and made the voices of the father bear, the mother bear and the baby bear! I also introduced the Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear rhyme and we'll do that for several days and as soon as the children know it we'll add our own lines to it as they can see what they can do and how we can rhyme the lines. The one we're practicing now is:

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, turn around,

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, touch the ground,

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, reach up high,

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, wink one eye.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, slap your knees,

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, sit down please.

Fun little rhymes like this one teach our children listening skills as they have to listen for the next action and it also, after a period of time, is a predictable reading text and they will join in as we read and do the actions together. I have this rhyme as a chart in the classroom so we can read it together as they become more familiar with the words. Have fun with this one and any other rhymes or stories that you read to your children!

Families and All About Me!

This week we're starting a new unit that encompasses many topics. We'll start taking about families and how special all the children are in their own family! We'll expand that to see that they belong to different groups besides their family such as their new preschool class. They will discover more about themselves as we discuss their uniqueness and how we can all be friends even though we're different. We'll sing and talk about body parts and incorporate the five senses into our play this week. We've introduced a few fingerplays such as "Where is Thumbkin?" and Whoops! Johnny and they love them! We've also been singing our way through the first week with The Gummy Bear song and the Bubble Gum song. We'll add more songs and fingerplays this week and I"ll add them here so you'll know what we're singing!

Welcome to the 2010-1011 School Year!

We've just completed our first week of school and we have a fantastic group of children in the Red Room this year! It was great to laugh, play and learn together! We read books about coming to school for the first time and experiencing new things such as new rooms, new teachers and new friends. We talked about how to make new friends too.

We made some changes within the school building over the summer and we introduced those changes to the children. The third floor has our sensory room complete with ball pits, swings, a Little Tykes climbing house, a mini-trampoline and large balls. We also have a housekeeping area, an art center and a music station for the children to explore. This week we used the sensory room and we will introduce the other areas in the next few weeks. The yellow room at the end of our hall now houses our library, puzzles, games and a listening center.

The children love music and we're already seeing songs that they like as they start to sing them throughout the day. One such favorite is about bubblegum.....if your child throws up their hands and says, "I love it, I love it", please know that's from the bubblegum song!

Barb, Gerry and I make up the staff in the Red Room we're looking forward to a wonderful year!